Code Name Hélène (2020) is Ariel Lawhon’s fourth work of historical fiction. Lawhon’s previous novel, I Was Anastasia (2018), about the life of a woman named Anna Anderson who lobbied to be recognized as the Russian princess Anastasia Romanov, was a New York Times bestseller. Code Name Hélène presents a fictionalized account of the life of Nancy Wake, an Australian woman who worked as a British intelligence officer supporting the French Resistance during World War II. While her wealthy industrialist husband Henri Fiocca stayed home to manage the business, Nancy Wake overcame the gendered expectations of women in the 1930s and 1940s to become a leading Resistance field commander in the mountainous French region of Auvergne.

This study guide uses the paperback Headline Review edition published in 2021.

Content Warning: The source material features graphic depictions of wartime and antisemitic violence, as well as mentions of sexual assault.

Plot Summary

Nancy Wake is an Australian woman working as a freelance reporter for Hearst newspapers in Paris in 1936 when, through her Parisian best friend Stephanie, she meets the millionaire playboy Henri Fiocca. Fiocca immediately falls for Nancy. After she gives him her number one night after running into him in Marseille, they begin dating. Throughout their courtship, Nancy maintains her independence, focusing on her work reporting on the rise of Nazism in Germany and Austria. Henri’s father disapproves of the relationship because Nancy is not French. Henri’s ex-girlfriend Marceline likewise attempts to win Henri back from Nancy. She is unsuccessful, and after two years of courtship, Henri proposes to Nancy. She moves to Marseille to begin their life together. Shortly after their engagement, Britain declares war on Germany.

After their marriage, Henri is drafted and goes off to fight on the Maginot Line, the concrete defenses along the French border with Germany. While he is away, Nancy works as a volunteer ambulance driver near the front lines on the border with Belgium. When her truck breaks down, Nancy returns to Marseille, where she begins to smuggle papers and refugees out of occupied France to freedom. Henri is injured at the front and returns to Marseille to continue running the family shipbuilding business. Nancy’s colleague Ian Garrow is arrested by the police, who, under the Vichy government of France, are German collaborators. Garrow is held at a concentration camp in Mauzac. Nancy bribes a guard there and manages to free him. However, the Vichy police learn about Nancy’s Resistance activities, and she is forced to flee across the Pyrenees to Spain and then to London. Before she leaves for the Pyrenees, her colleague Patrick O’Leary is turned in by an informant, Roger le Neveu, and sent to Dachau. After she escapes, Henri is arrested and held by the Vichy police for supporting her. The police torture Henri to get information about Nancy’s activities, but he refuses to give them anything.

While in London, Nancy is recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the British clandestine service supporting resistance groups in occupied Europe. She is trained by the head of the French section of the SOE, Maurice Buckmaster, radio operator Denis Rake, and weapons specialist René Dusacq. After months of training, Nancy parachutes into France with her colleague, former soldier John Farmer, codename Hubert. Hubert and Nancy work to support the Maquis, a Resistance group in the mountains in Auvergne, by providing material and tactical support. They are initially supposed to work with a Maquis leader named Gaspard, but he refuses their offer of assistance, so they embed with a leader named Henri Fournier. Nancy faces many difficulties while with the Maquis, including attacks by German forces. During a mission to make contact with a Resistance intelligence agent, Nancy and Hubert discover that his pregnant wife has been tortured and murdered by Gestapo officer Obersturmführer Wolff. Nancy swears she will get her revenge.

After the Allied troops land in France, Nancy and Hubert work to support them by taking out the German headquarters in Montluçon. Nancy assassinates Wolff. When the war is over, Nancy returns to Marseille, where she learns that her husband has been killed while in captivity. The novel ends with Nancy reuniting with her SOE colleagues, including Patrick O’Leary, who has survived his time in Dachau.